English Literature / Unit 19 ENL 1816 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Signature of Middle English
Captions available
The idea
Middle English, from after the Conquest to about fifteen hundred, is readable with a gloss and full of French words and older spellings, as in "When that Aprilis, with his showers swoot." Chaucer's couplets and rhyme royal, romances, dream visions and the alliterative revival mark it.
In practice
Old spellings, French words, Chaucer.
Where people slip
Spelling points earlier than the sixteenth century.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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